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I don't know - we have an active contributor to Wikipedia Review apparently editing on behalf of another Wikipedia Review editor (who happens to be a permabanned editor). Not too big a leap at all... Guettarda (talk) 03:59, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

That's right folks, I forgot to mention we re-programmed Krimpet a week or so ago and we are finally putting her to use.

It's a good example, though, of how the deck is completely stacked in favor of revenge-grabbers - not only because of the civility and "AGF" rules that protect them as long as they retain that veneer of politeness, but because of natural human emotional and behavioral predictability. People trying to do something positive can almost always be bullied into submission by people trying to do something negative, because negative emotions and thoughts are much easier to sustain, if not escalate. That's part of man's basic animal nature: It takes a real effort to do something positive, but people who are into negativity can pretty much go at it all night, if that's what it takes.

It kind of makes sense that it would be over this issue, too, when you think about it.

I would be interested in working constructively with responsible and mature admins — people of the caliber of Doc Glasgow — to devise a mutually agreeable way to solve the festering problems that have produced such a long-running Kafkaesque nightmare for everyone.

This is exactly what I'm hoping to see too - a mutually agreeable solution to the BLP disaster led by trusted, principled folks (and I'm not going to lie and pretend I'm one of them ) who can hear concerns from all sides. What's troubling is that this combative eye-for-an-eye outing approach, which just makes much of the WP community less receptive to any reform out of spite, is constantly setting back any hope of fixing things by driving the principled folks away.

The two-sentence, 32-word, untitled petition that Picard and 100 other scientists and academics signed in 2001 reads as follows:

QUOTE(Untitled Petition of 2001)

We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.

Picard says this:

QUOTE(Rosalind Picard)

My agreement with the petition's first statement is based mostly on my experiments trying to get statistical physics simulations to generate complex specific patterns out of randomness. I don't know anybody who would disagree with the second statement in the petition.

To my mind, the only thing wrong with the second statement is that it's not broad enough. As a science educator, I encourage students to carefully examine the evidence for any theory.

As to the complexity of life, no one knows how DNA-based life as we know it ever got started in the first place. The puzzle of abiogenesis remains an unsolved problem in molecular biology.

Ehh, hopefully we can agree to disagree on the whole evolution vs. creationism thing...

As for me, I'm certainly what one would call an "evolutionist" - which is to say that I have no qualms with the idea that evolution is a proven theory, and I'd be perfectly happy if people stopped calling evolution a "theory" and started referring to it as a "fact," which is what some scientists are actually starting to do in response to the recent ID business.

However, I do have qualms with people being targeted by WP attack editors and system-gamers just for having signed some stupid petition, getting lumped in with a bunch of people they have nothing to do with, and then never being able to get their privacy and their professional reputations back because those same attack editors insist that anyone who questions them has to "AGF."

It's just morally wrong to do that to a person, at least over something like that. I could probably see it if they'd mistakenly signed a petition that clearly advocated wiping out everyone under the age of 14 by feeding them to a swarm of locusts, though.

The way I see it is that we have 2 Theories (probably more but 2 "main" ones)

1. Evolution (and all its variants and whatnot)2. Creation (and all its variants and whatnot)

Both are THEORIES both will probably NEVER be proved 100% (because doing that would require observation ), both have some things pointing to them, and some against.

However Wikipedia only allows for ONE theory

I disagree. Mere evolution is descent with modification. That most or all extant species developed from a single ancestor is obvious. That random mutation and natural selection are causes of susequent variation is similarly obvious. That they are the main or only causes is not as clear.

What we can say is that there is no coherent counter-explanation at this time, other than the, erm, deus ex machina of the creationists.

None of that touches on abiogenesis, really, expect by analogy: naturalism has worked well until now, so we can expect that this explanation is similarly naturalistic. There is of course no way to say that God didn't guide any or all of this change, but there is no evidence for it, besides the unauthored claims of scripture.

Even scripturally, Genesis is weak: not only doesn't the author identify himself, he makes no claim to have witnessed any of the events described, nor does he cite any chain of authority to this effect. It is as if people of the future came upon a contemporary book with really big letters which began, "Once upon a time…" and believed what followed, where it would be bad enough to assume that we believed it.

Additionally, I see no reason to believe that either the Jews or Jesus took this story seriously, or considered belief in it an important part in religion, other than the fact of its inclusion in scripture…and do we have any idea who made that decision, or why?

The way I see it is that we have 2 Theories (probably more but 2 "main" ones)

1. Evolution (and all its variants and whatnot)2. Creation (and all its variants and whatnot)

Both are THEORIES both will probably NEVER be proved 100% (because doing that would require observation ), both have some things pointing to them, and some against.

However Wikipedia only allows for ONE theory

Evolution is observable and beyond dispute. Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection to explain the complexity of life is a Scientific Theory, not some half baked theory we come up with lying on our backs staring at the moon. That other thing you mention has nothing to do with scientific theory, nor the article in question. I don't think you'll find anyone to agree with you here.

But if you want to discuss these matters, please do so in the "Politics, Religion and Such" forum.

Additionally, I see no reason to believe that either the Jews or Jesus took this story seriously, or considered belief in it an important part in religion, other than the fact of its inclusion in scripture…and do we have any idea who made that decision, or why?

Hard to say, but as long as nobody tries to claim it was SlimVirgin's doing, I'll be happy.

However, I do have qualms with people being targeted by WP attack editors and system-gamers just for having signed some stupid petition, getting lumped in with a bunch of people they have nothing to do with, and then never being able to get their privacy and their professional reputations back because those same attack editors insist that anyone who questions them has to "AGF."

I also take issue the fact that the controllers of this article are pseudonymous, while Ms. Picard is not. Who is responsible for ensuring the fairness and veracity of that article?

QUOTE

I could probably see it if they'd mistakenly signed a petition that clearly advocated wiping out everyone under the age of 14 by feeding them to a swarm of locusts, though.

Additionally, I see no reason to believe that either the Jews or Jesus took this story seriously, or considered belief in it an important part in religion, other than the fact of its inclusion in scripture…and do we have any idea who made that decision, or why?

If Jesus was just a man who would have had to make a decision what he believed about origins (as opposed to the Christian belief that Jesus is God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, who knows for a fact what happened because He was there), then all of Christianity is a vicious hoax anyway.

The Christian belief in the literal truth of the whole of scripture comes from, among other places, Matthew 5:18 where Jesus says, "I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished." You can read more about the theology of it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_inspiration (which is really a rather poor article).

I don't know anyone who disputes evolution as Darwin defined it — the emergence of new species via descent with modification and natural selection.

On the other hand, I don't know anybody who has a good theory about how life as we know it arose in the first place. That's where the "complexity of life" issue is the main obstacle to be overcome. DNA and its replication cycle is complex. How that complex molecular machinery ever got started remains a scientific mystery. Perhaps it will solved in this century.

The evidence for Darwin's model is compelling. But it's also important to examine that evidence with a skeptical eye. Some of the evidence trotted out to support Darwin's model isn't probative. That's like including extraneous material in the proof of a mathematical theorem. It's important to appreciate which evidence is probative.

One valid complaint about Darwin's model is that it's a qualitative model rather than a quantitative one. What's needed is a stochastic model that corresponds to Stephen Jay Gould's notion of Punctuated Equilibrium. Stanislaw Ulam is one of the few mathematicians to make significant contributions to this important frontier. Ulam's seminal contributions to theoretical biology should not be overlooked.

And scientists who are concerned about these questions should not be confused with religious fundamentalists who prefer non-scientific explanations for the unanswered questions about the origin and complexity of life.

Reading that firestorm in the wake of Krimpet's contested edits, I can imagine how Moses must have felt when he parted the waters. Half of the suds line up on one side of the gap, and half line up on the other. Where is the middle ground?